Photo by: Zach Blom
Are you sitting down? You shouldn’t be. Not as long as we’re at war in Iraq.
You might be thinking, “Another defeatist editorial from another leftist journalist.”
But this message is not a leftist one; it’s an American one. After all, it is a protest, and America was founded by protestors seeking a better life and a better country. No matter your party affiliation, your race, color or creed, you are an American, and with that title comes responsibility, regardless of other differences.
As you read this, young Americans like you are fighting and dying, literally giving life and limb in the mismanaged, misinformed, misanthropic quagmire that is Iraq. As of Sunday, known American casualties approached 3,800. And last week, the sixth anniversary of Sept. 11 came and passed with little fanfare.
No one wants to pay attention to that date anymore. It reminds us of Iraq, of a war we failed to prepare for, and more closely, it reminds us that we are a people who allowed our nation’s leadership to go there, unilaterally, with no grasp of the consequences. Like good citizens in adverse times, we believed our government’s leaders when they said Iraq was tied to 9/11, supported the “War on Terror,” and felt our backs against a wall with the report of WMDs.
And now, with no end in sight, we want to sweep it under the rug like it isn’t happening. We don’t want to see how ugly we are, or who is pushing us against that wall.
But it is happening. This very moment, it is happening. It’s time for us to be good citizens again. And this time, being good citizens means that we must protest. We must protest this ugliness if we are to become beautiful again. If we are to leave Iraq, we must push back against the leadership that put our backs against the wall with lies.
Here at the University of Denver, it’s easy to forget that we wage a war on a foreign soil, a foreign people, a foreign culture. In college, it’s easy to forget yourself, let alone the world-at-large. But it’s time to remember our roots, not just as a nation, but as a student population.
Have you ever heard of Woodstock West? You should go to the library and research it. Why the library, you ask? Because Penrose Library was erected to end it.
On the land where Penrose now sits, students like yourself, angry with the government and its war in Vietnam, decided to protest. During May 6-13, 1970, over 1,500 students walked out of their classes and joined “agitators” from all over the nation in building a “Peace and Freedom Community” with tents and boards. The Chancellor at the time, Maurice B. Mitchell, ordered the students to disperse, and when they didn’t, he called in the police, who arrested 30 and destroyed the makeshift city.
But the students were not easily put out. Six hundred came back almost immediately, rebuilding their site of protest with thicker beams and stronger nails. The city was leveled a second time, but only after the Colorado National Guard was brought in to secure the campus green.
Instead of resorting to anger and violence, students returned to the decimated grounds of Woodstock West to “love to death” the 30 remaining police guards. They went from one guard to the next and “discussed, argued, agreed and laughed together,” according to an article in the Denver Post. The next day, with construction of the new library set to begin immediately on the razed grounds, 400 of DU’s 430 faculty met and voted to support the “spirit of Woodstock West.”
While there is no official plaque commemorating the event, Penrose Library is a monument to it.
We can learn a lot from our Pioneer ancestors. In a time of crisis, when the government’s leadership continued to wage an unjust and unilateral war, when our nation outwardly meted out the death and hatred involved in war, our Pioneer family protested. In the heart of a country in turmoil, the Pioneers meted out love, compassion and understanding.
But you know what they had to do first?
They had to stand up. They had to stand up for themselves. They had to stand up for a misguided country that needed them more than ever. They had to stand up for the troops fighting and dying for a leadership that wanted to forget their sacrifice. They had to stand up for what was right.
Today, Penrose stands as our proof that we have stood in protest before. It stands to remind us that we can no longer take this unjust war sitting down.
We are the Pioneers. Protest is in our blood.
We must stand up.
